Rethinking Punitive Justice: A Critical Analysis Of Community Service As A Mode Of Sentencing Under The Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023
Dr. Waheed Alam, Assistant Professor, Shia P.G. College, University of Lucknow
ABSTRACT
The adoption of community service as a punishment option was suggested for more than 40 years by Law Commission studies and expert committees in India; nonetheless, the idea stayed on paper until the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS), 2023 was passed. Community service is one of the six recognised punishments listed in Section 4(f) of the BNS; and it has only been applied to six minor infractions so far. The retributive punitive tradition of the Indian Penal Code, 1860, the reformist suggestions of the Law Commission and the Malimath Committee, and the final, restrictive codification of community service are all traced in this article. It compares the Indian reform to similar non-custodial sentencing policies in South Africa, the United States, and England and Wales. It contends that although the BNS reform has true symbolic value, it is structurally flawed because the legislature has not established the institutional framework of pre-sentence evaluation, probation supervision, and authorised work sites that similar jurisdictions consider essential. The paper concludes that community service runs the risk of becoming a statute book provision that is mostly absent from courtroom practice unless the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023, and its subordinate rules are amended.
Keywords: Community Service; Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023; Restorative Justice; Sentencing Reform; Non-Custodial Punishment; Reformative Theory of Punishment.
